Unless you’re one of the UKs growing infestation of billionaire class, or you’ve been brainwashed by the daily rot to think food banks are appealing, things are pretty shit around here, and that’s a terrible feeling. Since decades before the Covid-19 pandemic amplified the inequalities listed, living standards for most have been free- falling.
Outside the structurally recurring patterns of wealth accumulation enjoyed by the powerful, most people get buy on earning just enough to cover the basics of life, food, shelter, heat. Treated mean by an antiquated first past the post political system designed to consolidate ruling class power, complicit tabloid headlines never blame poverty on a lack of political education. Self-replicating systems of privilege pay forward intergenerational gains that grow an ever-increasing wealth gap between the asset holders of capitalism and the rest of us.
Since way back in time, the learnt ideological imperative a classically educated political elite has be encouraged to view the ills of society as a problem of breeding. For, unlike the ruling class, who live in what sociologists Macintosh and Mooney call social isolation, most folks don’t send their children to expensive fee-paying schools where their children are socialised to perceive themselves as natural born rulers. In such settings “like minded” children grow up and settle down together a county mile from the grind of inner-city life and the poverty of millions. The inherent inequality of such ways of perceiving form compassion blind spots that manifest as bad shit repetitions. Although many seek to define contemporary society as a quest to find your own tribe, in reality we live one life on one planet. True finding in life comes from discovering that you have the power to leave the world a better place, than how we now find it.
In 2019 the United Nations carried out a piece of research into living conditions in the UK. In summary to his findings its main author Professor Philip Alston, wrote;
‘...14 million people, a fifth of the population, live in poverty. Four million of these are more than 50% below the poverty line, and 1.5 million are destitute, unable to afford basic essentials.....For almost one in every two children to be poor in twenty-first century Britain is not just a disgrace, but a social calamity and an economic disaster, all rolled into one.’ The UN report continues: ‘The compassion and mutual concern that has long been part of the British tradition has been outsourced. At the same time many of the public places and institutions that previously brought communities together, such as libraries, community and recreation centres, and public parks, have been steadily dismantled or undermined.’
Millionaire Chancellor Philip Hammond, responded to this report on TV: "I reject the idea that there are vast numbers of people facing dire poverty in this country. I don't accept the UN rapporteur's report at all. I think that's a nonsense. Look around you, that's not what we see in this country” (BBC2 News Night).
According to the UK Mental Health Foundation (2019) 20% of UK adolescents experienced mental health problems in any given year with 75% of all mental health problems becoming established by age 24 and one in ten 5–16-year-olds, having a clinically diagnosable mental problem. This burden of mental illness afflicts children from lower socioeconomic groups disproportionately leading to brain damage which restricts cognitive performance in language function, knowledge acquisition, attention, future planning and decision making. Poverty during a child’s early development also affects their biological stress regulatory system where the brain chemically deals with stress by responding genetically. Over time this poverty amplified stress leads to health damaging effects on the immune system, cardiovascular function, respiratory system and other systems including the neural mechanisms by which stress responses are regulated in the brain.
The impact of poverty on adolescent mental health is cumulative, leading to the development of conditions such as depression, and behavioural risks such as substance use, early sexual activity and criminal are all linked. Growing up in a family with financial problems can negatively impact on adolescents’ mental health and is associated with depression among girls and drinking to intoxication in boys, a ‘sense of helplessness and feelings of shame and inferiority.’
The UK government publication, ‘Health profile for England: 2018’, revealed higher mortality rates in the poorest regions, from heart disease, lung cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases, and a four times increased likelihood of dyeing prematurely from cardiovascular disease. In these most deprived areas, a half of all 10- to 11-year-olds are overweight or obese, with the incidence of overweight or obese children from poorer backgrounds twice that of those brought up not being skint.
According to The Child Poverty Action Group, childhood poverty impacts on life chances, with almost a third less likely to get at least 5 A*-C or equivalent GCSE grades than those who don’t grow up in poverty as indicated by the number who don’t receive free school meals. Julie Bentley, the Action for Children Chief Executive, recently said: ‘The country is sleepwalking into a crisis in childhood and, far from being carefree, our children are buckling under the weight of unprecedented social pressures, global turmoil and a void in government policy which should keep them well and safe.’
Their research shows children worry about poverty, homelessness and terrorism, and the vulnerable children we work with every day are facing traumas like domestic abuse or neglect, without the support they need. Children from the most economically deprived backgrounds are pessimistic about their lives with over a third thinking that childhood is getting worse.
The Equality Trust, a charity that aims to reduce economic and social inequality, point out that wealth in Great Britain is more unequally divided than income. In 2016, the Office for National Statistics found that the richest 10% of households have 44% of all wealth and the poorest 50%, own just 9%. In the UK, the top 0.1% of the population saw their share of total wealth double between 1984 and 2013, reaching 9%. This gap is widening. There is a strong relationship between high levels of income inequality and low levels of social mobility. Children from highly paid families are more likely to end up highly paid adults and children of the low paid are more likely to stay poor. It draws upon research that suggests that inequality experienced as a child leads to limited social mobility. This is linked to lower educational achievement based upon low self-expectation that is founded upon limited trust in the opportunities up for grabs in an unequal society. This, it is argued leads to poor social and family relationships that damage educational outcome for the next generation.
Once grown up ready to face the world as a young adult, figures show that people who live in the poorest areas not only have the shortest life expectancy, they also have the least time living in ‘good’ health. People who are most well off, can look forward to spending an extra 15% of their longer life in ‘good’ health, than the poorest. England’s most affluent women can expect to live an extra 17% of their lives in ‘good’ health compared with the poorest women in England, such as those from Hull who can expect to spend less than 66.7% of their life expectancy in ‘good’ health.
In 2019 Julie Bentley, the Action for Children Chief Executive stated: ‘The country is sleepwalking into a crisis in childhood and, far from being carefree, our children are buckling under the weight of unprecedented social pressures, global turmoil and a void in government policy which should keep them well and safe.’
In 2022 the Joseph Rowntree Foundation 2022 estimated that 14.5 million people in the UK are living in poverty, that’s almost a quarter of population of the population. 4.3 million of these are children, whose physical, intellectual and emotional development are highly likely to be negatively impacted upon, setting off out in life severely disadvantaged. These empirical social facts are totally unacceptable in one of the richest countries on Earth.
A 2022 report by the Resolution Foundation, suggested that the poorest of households are set to see their incomes fall even further. Rising living costs, thanks in no small part to the Brexit bus, is set to push 1.3 million people into absolute poverty, including 500 000 children. Absolute poverty is the worst kind of poverty, one that you might only exists in failed states or nations where governments do not represent their constituency. In this dire situation families find it impossible to meet the basic needs of life including food and shelter. Because of the issues highlighted above over 1.9 million children are eligible for free school meals, a number which is increasing increase post covid-19.
The impact of such poverty in turn self-replicates the many problems of morbidity that form negative feedback loops associated with the poor. According to the UK Mental Health Foundation, in 2019, 20% of UK adolescents experienced mental health problems in any given year with 75% of all mental health problems becoming established by age 24 and one in ten 5–16-year-olds, having a clinically diagnosable mental problem. This was before the pandemic kicked the systemic causes of this malcontent into the long grass of causality.
UK government statistics from March 2017 show that in the poorest areas of England, like Hull, men can expect to live 19 years less of their lives in ‘good’ health compared with those living in the wealthiest regions of England, such as Wokingham, where men can expect to live in good health until they are 71. By about aged 51 the average man in Hull has a life of morbidity and medication ahead of him. Girls born in Richmond Upon Thames can expect to live 17 years longer in “good” health than women born in The City of Kingston Upon Hull. A Richmond woman can expect to live a healthy and active life until they are about 72, compared with average Hull woman who can expect to be suffering from poor health by the time she is roughly 54. Hull has the third lowest healthy life expectancy for women in England.
This burden of mental illness afflicts children from lower socioeconomic groups disproportionately leading to brain damage which restricts cognitive performance in language function, knowledge acquisition, attention, future planning and decision making. Poverty during a child’s early development also affects their biological stress regulatory system where the brain chemically deals with stress by responding genetically. Over time this poverty amplified stress leads to health damaging effects on the immune system, cardiovascular function, respiratory system and other systems including the neural mechanisms by which stress responses are regulated in the brain.
The impact of poverty on adolescent mental health is cumulative, leading to the development of conditions such as depression, and behavioural risks such as substance use, early sexual activity and criminal are all linked. Growing up in a family with financial problems can negatively impact on adolescents’ mental health and is associated with depression among girls and drinking to intoxication in boys, a ‘sense of helplessness and feelings of shame and inferiority.’
The UK government publication, ‘Health profile for England: 2018’, revealed higher mortality rates in the poorest regions, from heart disease, lung cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases, and a four times increased likelihood of dyeing prematurely from cardiovascular disease. In these most deprived areas, a half of all 10- to 11-year-olds are overweight or obese, with the incidence of overweight or obese children from poorer backgrounds twice that of those brought up not being skint.
In 2023 report by the centre for social justice found that the most disadvantaged 13.4 million of King Charles’s subjects, are sliding towards the poverty of his great-great-great grandmother Queen Victoria; destitution, stagnant wages, lousy houses, terrible health, crimes of destitution. The lifelong impact of such terrible inequalities should be a national scandal. Only a quarter of children eligible for free school meals, receive five good GCSEs, including English and mathematics, compared with over a half of non-free school meals pupils.
Once grown up ready to face the world as a young adult, figures show that people who live in the poorest areas not only have the shortest life expectancy, they also have the least time living in ‘good’ health. People who are most well off, can look forward to spending an extra 15% of their longer life in ‘good’ health, than the poorest. England’s most affluent women can expect to live an extra 17% of their lives in ‘good’ health compared with the poorest women in England, such as those from Hull who can expect to spend less than 66.7% of their life expectancy in ‘good’ health.
